


My one and only

by nottimagiche



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Angst, Loneliness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 17:01:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18480520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nottimagiche/pseuds/nottimagiche
Summary: Some loneliness and sexual frustration, set in mid-April 2019.





	My one and only

**Author's Note:**

> Some loneliness and sexual frustration, set in mid-April 2019.

Eric felt lonely at times.

He was man enough to admit it, to himself at least, that the company of his dog, his teammates, his family, his brother and his childhood friends was not always enough. He had been alone for too long.

He missed touches, lips on skin, the brushing of feet together under the covers, his hand resting over a hip bone and the sound of another set of breaths next to his. These were difficult to come by these days. Sex was not difficult to come by if he wanted it, but it wasn’t what Eric was missing. It was the everything else, all that would beat the loneliness.

He had been alone for too long. The darkness was starting to creep up on him again and he could feel the clouds gathering inside his mind, his body. He tried to fight it by agreeing to go out with his arty friends, asking Markus to stay indefinitely, moving to a new house, buying a new car. It was time to rejuvenate, maybe all that would stave off the clouds. His body certainly wasn’t doing anything to help.

He missed the sex, sometimes, the good kind, the kind that would start slowly and build and build until hours had passed and he would feel so spent and content and blissful. There was sex available whenever he wanted it, just a message away, but if his mind was fucked, his body wanted none of it.

And it was difficult to connect with women who were paid for their services. Yes they were beautiful, tall, slim, with easy smiles and eagerness to please, discreet as they were paid to be, but difficult to connect with on an emotional level. Eric usually didn’t want blondes, they reminded him too much of her, and brunettes reminded him of his sisters and how they would disapprove if they knew. Redheads also weren’t really his thing, so it was slim pickings in the end. Sometimes, arriving at the designated hotel room, he would close his eyes immediately after knocking on the door, and keep them closed until he felt a small peck on his cheek and she, whoever she was, had vacated the room.

It was difficult to find someone. Someone for a physical, emotional, intellectual connection, someone who had a life of their own but could jet away to Portugal at the drop of a hat or take time off when he had time off. Someone who could accept football always came first. Someone who could handle the money, the house, the cars, the art but who wasn’t with him for the money. How lucky were the lads who had found their someones before they were famous, not having to worry about gold diggers or tabloid traps.

How he wanted to find someone who could handle his large family, who could communicate in more than one language, who would feel at ease in a café in Lisbon, by the pool in Lagos, in the park in London, in the stands at WHL, at dinner with his siblings and friends or attending an art exhibition. Someone who could dress up, dress down and disrobe, all with equal ease. Someone who would kiss him over breakfast, hold his hand over lunch and ride him with abandon in his infrared sauna in the evening. Someone who wouldn't mind a millionaire in the baggiest track pants and shirts available to man.

Very difficult to find that someone, Eric felt.

***

He hadn’t gone out for so long. The UFC night with Paddy didn't count and the evenings in Barcelona during the winter training week also didn’t really count because it was the lads and it was mostly dinner and some drinks, not getting completely sloshed like he now found himself in the swanky Loulou’s. It made for a nice change, Eric felt, getting dressed up, joining some fancy and fashionable people for his friend’s girlfriend’s birthday, no trainers or trackies in sight.

He wanted to let go, it had been a while, and drown his sorrows in some ridiculously priced champagne. Some of the girls were taking pictures, of course, and he knew they would end up on someone’s Instagram and someone in the squad would see them (Dele) and he’d get a ribbing on Monday (from Dele) about fancy parties and artsy fartsy friends (again Dele) but fuck it, he deserved to enjoy himself, have a drink or two, maybe take one of the pretty ladies to a nearby hotel, he deserved it. He was tired of being alone.

***

In the early hours of that morning, Eric felt a mouth on his skin.

He felt it move across his body, moist and heated against his abdomen, chest, rising higher until there was burning breath on his neck, a velvet tongue slipping out to take a taste, a damp path trailing upwards but deftly avoiding his lips before beginning its descent again.

Eric lay still, letting the mouth roam across his body, exploring the surfaces and eliciting a stirring deep within his body. He lay still as burning arousal began to engulf his body, rising from the depths of his groin and spreading to his limbs, the delicious ache robbing all strength from them. He lay motionless, eyes closed, and let the sensation find its way to his chest, to squeeze his lungs, to accelerate his breathing and force a soft moan from the back of his throat.

The mouth continued, relentless, tasting the taut nipples, rolling them gently to savour them before the attention moved lower again to Eric’s abdomen and slowly further down until there was hot breath, then a wet tongue, on his groin, the breath lingering for a moment before Eric’s hardened length was engulfed.

Eric groaned sharply and his eyes flashed open.

There was no one.

No mouth on him, no one with him, nothing covering his throbbing length. He wasn’t in a hotel room; he was alone in his own bed.

Eric squeezed his eyes shut rapidly, desperate for the dream to continue, to return, but it never did.

He was still drunk, he could feel it from the buzzing in his ears and the spin underneath his eyelids. Suddenly his eyes opened again and a wave of panic and realisation crashed through him.

Him.

It was him.

That was Dele.

***

The next evening, after an uneventful day off courtesy of the rehabilitation team, Eric looked across the large sofa at his friends. That morning he had sworn off any booze for an eternity again and stuffed his face with a very uncustomary full English to negate the effects of the alcohol. His body was supposed to be his temple but it hadn’t felt very holy that morning with his face in the toilet bowl. The dream, in all its glory, however, had stayed with him the whole morning, afternoon and evening.

What had possessed him to dream about Dele that way, he had tried to figure out all day. His phone showed he had tried to call Dele around 2 am, that probably was the reason. Had the younger man stayed in his head somehow? And having returned home from the club alone and empty-handed, maybe his sexual frustrations just amalgamated into that dream?

After all, he had been alone for so long. But he hadn’t wanted his cock sucked by a teammate before. So why was he now obsessing over a familiar long dark one, desperate to take a taste, like the owner of that long dark one had taken a taste of his in his dream?

Eric looked at his friends again across the sofa, engrossed in their phones, oblivious to what their lifelong friend was contemplating. Markus and Simon were great company, had been for some 15 years but all their lives were so different. While they knew each other well, Eric knew they couldn’t really fully understand his life, the way it now was. They were great company but at times Eric felt wistfully lonely even with them five feet away.

Eric felt the clouds gather again in his mind and he reached for his phone.

 _Have time to meet up?_ he typed and saw the blue ticks appear immediately next to his words.

_sorry having a trim_

Eric knew Dele wouldn’t really have time to hang on a Saturday evening.

 _later?_ came another quick reply. _wanna see the new house_

Dele hadn’t seen the new house yet, nice of him to be interested, Eric thought.

 _I have people here_ , Eric typed. _Actually I wanted to talk_

_tonight?_

_Yes_

_not tomorrow?_

_No_

_is it serious?_

_A little bit_

Eric wasn’t sure it was so serious, but he needed to talk to Dele, talk face to face, just them, like they had done countless times for years now. His phone soon lit up with Dele calling.

“What’s wrong?” Dele asked on the other end of the line.

Eric got up from the sofa to take some distance from his friends. “Nothing, I just feel like talking, you know?”

“Yeah, OK”, Dele replied. “Wanna meet at the training ground?” The lads had access to the facility 24/7. “In about... an hour?”

“It’s Saturday and you’re busy...” Eric started to backtrack, this was clearly an overreaction.

“I’m not busy”, Dele replied quickly. “I’ll see you there, yeah?”

“OK”, Eric replied and closed the connection. He moved back to the living room, made some excuses about needing to see his agent, unleashed the new DB11 from the garage and let the V8 rip up north to Enfield.

***

When Eric pulled up to the Hotspur Way driveway, he could see Dele’s Bentley already parked in front of the main building. A small smile played on Eric’s lips. Good lad that Del Boy.

Dele had predictably switched on all the lights to the entire complex, _no way I’m skulking around in the dark,_ he had once said when the two of them had first sneaked in all those years ago. Eric made his way to the lounge and found the younger man sat on one of the sofas. Dele nodded as he saw Eric approach and tapped the soft seat next to him, inviting Eric to sit down.

From one sofa to another, Eric smiled inwardly. This one, somehow, felt miles better.

“How you do?” Dele smiled and nudged Eric’s side softly.

“Yeah you dun know”, Eric returned the smile.

“Oh my God, you’re still using it wrong!” Dele exclaimed, exasperated. “Can you just stick to whatever 80’s phraseology you grew up with?”

“I’m two years older than you, which decade did you grow up in?” Eric shook his head. How he loved this.

“That may be but in spiritual years you’re like a grandad, it’s embarrassing”, Dele kept smiling. “Like an embarrassing, poorly dressed old man.”

“Love you too brother”, Eric raised his hands to mess with Dele’s new trim but his hand was swatted away in a flash before he could reach the curls.

“You never touch a fresh trim, have I taught you nothing?”

“You and your trims, you wouldn’t need to get one every two days if you had a stronger hairline.”

“Can you not start on that please”, Dele softened his tone a tad. “You know I don’t like it.”

“Sorry mate”, Eric replied and leaned back on the sofa next to Dele. “I keep forgetting.”

“Hmphm”, Dele sounded and also leaned back on the sofa, his hand tapping Eric’s thigh. “What’s on your mind, mate?”

Eric ran his hand over his beard and stroked the hairs on his chin. “I guess I just… I feel like I need to talk more.”

“You’re telling me!” Dele exclaimed but toned down seeing the look on Eric’s face. “I mean... I don’t disagree, I think you should. Something's bothering you, you know you can tell me.”

“I know that”, Eric nodded.

“You tried to call me last night at 2 am, you know”, Dele continued. “Some of us like to sleep at that hour.”

“Yeah, sorry about that, I don’t remember calling you”, Eric confessed. “I was out with some friends.”

“Aha, getting shitfaced with some mates, yeah? Why wasn’t I invited?”

Eric smiled a little. “They’re not really your type of friends.”

“Here you go again with the racial profiling, Dier, it’s shameful—”

“Shut the hell up Del”, Eric punched his friend on the arm, “Can you be serious for one minute?”

Dele quietened down. “Sorry mate.”

Eric crossed his arms and took a deep breath. “Can I talk for a while and you don’t interrupt me?” He turned his eyes at Dele who had an increasingly concerned look on his face. “Can I just talk and you don’t say anything until I say so?”

Dele nodded.

“I didn’t mean right this second, you smart arse”, Eric shook his head, but Dele just shrugged. The infuriating smart arse.

Eric took in another deep breath, his yoga classes kicking in whenever he needed to summon up courage to confess his secrets.

“I’m so lonely, Del”, Eric said quietly and at the shock of those words, he saw his friend bury his face in his hands, Dele’s shoulders slumping as he took in the words. Dele raised his eyes at Eric after a moment, brimming with sorrow but waited for the older man to continue.

“It’s not your fault, Del”, Eric continued, giving Dele’s thigh a small squeeze. “We have different lives and we can’t hang out all the time anymore, it’s fine, and it’s not because of you that I’m lonely, it’s a lot of things.” Eric ran his hands over his hair. “I keep thinking how much I'd love to be with someone, you know, like earlier, I miss that side so much, and the girls we visit sometimes, they’re not enough and I feel like if there’s no emotional connection in it, what’s the point?” Eric paused and looked at Dele who kept looking at his friend but remained silent.

“And then sometimes I think when am I the happiest? When am I content and happy and it feels like everything is right in the world? And I realise it’s here, at the training ground, with you and the lads but life can’t be all about football, can it? It can’t be everything that’s making me happy, surely?” Eric could see the muscles in Dele’s jaw move as he bit his teeth together to stop himself from talking. Dele’s dark eyes were pleading for a chance to talk but Eric denied him by continuing.

“I mean football is my life, hopefully it will be for another 10 years maybe and after that life will be very different and so what if I just want to focus on football now and leave all the rest of it for later, like Sonny is doing, it’s all football for him now, no distractions, except for the girls he likes to visit without his dad knowing, but I don’t know if I can do that, Del, you know?” Eric let out a long breath again.

“...sometimes I’m so desperate for someone next to me in bed, you know, I miss it so much, or to have a little lad running around the house, you know like Lucas has, but I also know I don’t want kids right now because I love thinking about just football but when that’s taken away when I’m injured, there’s not much life left, is there?”

Dele pressed his side closer to Eric’s to show he was there. He wasn’t allowed to talk but Eric had said nothing about body contact.

“Am I talking nonsense?” Eric sighed. “Sometimes I feel lonely even with people around me, like my friends, you know? I just need to be back playing and these fucking weekends without playing are doing my head it, I swear.” He sighed again. “Last night I went out to this Lauren’s birthday, you remember Gabriel the gallery guy, his girlfriend, and it was nice, I had too much to drink and by 2 am I think everything was crashing down on me again and how I would've loved to have gone home to someone there waiting—”

Eric let out a small involuntary sob and shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, adjusted his position to shake the blues. He felt Dele wrap his arms around his shoulders and pull the older man closer. The two remained silent for a moment before Dele asked quietly, “Can I talk now?”

Eric nodded.

“You called me last night, you said you don’t remember doing that but it’s clear you were fucked off your head because you left a message in my voice mail.”

Eric lifted his body from Dele’s side, an immediate tensing in his frame.

“Oh yes”, Dele replied to Eric’s silent panic. “I can play it for you if you like.”

“No thanks”, Eric replied quickly. “Bear in mind I was drunk, as you said.”

“Ah yes, but out of the mouths of drunks and babes comes the truth, you know.”

“Sweet Jesus”, Eric exhaled and lowered his head in his hands.

“Calm down”, Dele said, “it’s not that bad.” He nudged Eric’s side to make the blond man look at him. “In response to your message… I also love you, I also feel my best when I’m with you, no you’re not crazy, yes I would like to kiss you too, and if you’d really give anything to have your dick sucked by me, I’m happy to do it.”

Eric didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Instead he buried his face in his hands again.

Dele smiled. “Are you seriously telling me you don’t remember saying any of that, ’cos that’s some intense stuff there.”

“I was drunk”, came a muffled reply.

“You were not drunk, you were lonely and horny and in love with me and on some subconscious level ready to tell me”, Dele touched Eric’s back as the man remained slouched forward.

“I was drunk”, Eric insisted underneath his hands. “And don’t touch me.”

“But last night you very much wanted me to touch you.”

Eric exhaled sharply and raised his head. “I love it how you’re able to find humour in my agony.”

“Ah mate, it’s because I love you”, Dele smiled and quickly descended on Eric’s unsuspecting lips. Dele could feel the shock and resistance when pressing against Eric’s mouth but he didn’t relent. Instead he pressed his body further against Eric's and brought his hands to the blond man’s nape. After a moment Dele lifted his lips from Eric’s for an inch, their skins still hovering close.

“Kiss me”, Dele whispered against Eric’s lips.

“No”, came a reply, Eric’s eyes closed tightly.

“Eric...” Dele brushed his lips against Eric’s. “I have dreamed about you kissing me, about you fucking me, us together in some café in Lisbon, at your place, in your bed, in my bed... the least you can do is kiss me.”

Eric opened his eyes slowly. “Don’t lie to me.”

“When have I ever lied to you?” Dele spoke softly. “In four years, tell me when I’ve lied to you.”

Eric pressed his forehead down so that it rested against Dele’s. “This is so wrong”, he sighed.

“If it’s wrong, then you go back to feeling lonely and I go back to filling my house with people because I can’t stand to be alone, are we doing that then?” Dele spoke, his forehead against Eric’s. “You said last night in that call that you deserve to be happy. And you deserve to be happy, Eric, and I deserve to be happy. If that’s with a millionaire who drives a DB11 in slouchy trackies and a grossly oversized jumper, then that's my fate.”

Eric let out small laugh, his hands slowly coming up to rest of Dele’s shoulders.

“I had a dream about you last night”, Eric confessed, his hands rubbing Dele’s skin as he felt the heat from the younger man’s fingers at his nape.

“Knew it”, Dele claimed. “You were wound up so tightly last night, no way you didn’t go home and have sex with me in your sleep.”

“No, you were just...” Eric paused, slightly embarrassed. “...licking me.”

“Well now”, Dele sighed, arousal building in his body. “It sounds like a good start to something.”

“I don’t understand how you’re so at ease talking about this”, Eric shook his head slowly. “Is this not embarrassing to you?”

Dele let out a giggle. “Ah mate, that’s just your proper English upbringing talking. Now tell me more about this dream.”

As soon as the words left Dele’s mouth, they were replaced by Eric’s eager lips, the onslaught a small but pleasant surprise and Dele found himself smiling against Eric’s lips. A soft pressing of Eric’s tongue made Dele sigh and open his mouth. After a moment, the two parted lips, their foreheads again resting against each other.

“I’ve told you too much today”, Eric smiled softly.

“You’ve not told me enough”, Dele pressed another kiss on Eric’s mouth. “Like this dream of yours where I was licking you, I’m curious how that turned out.”

“I woke up when you took me in your mouth.”

Dele let out a pained breath and Eric took advantage of the opened mouth to slip his tongue into Dele’s mouth again. Dele moaned against Eric’s mouth, the wet heat of their joint surfaces burning their skins.

“How about I show you later?” Eric spoke into Dele’s mouth and the hitched breath of the younger man indicated that would do nicely.

“Yes please”, Dele breathed. “But somewhere else, this is not the most romantic set up”, Dele gestured around the lounge.

“Del, I’ve seen you get sucked in a hotel room with a camera rolling, was there something romantic about that?”

“Touché”, Dele replied before both let out a laugh. “Not my finest hour, that”, Dele shrugged. “But luckily I think this is very different.”

“Hmm”, Eric sounded and looked at Dele. “You do know sex is not why I told you all this today”, he said.

“I know”, Dele replied.

“I’ve known you for four years, no sex, and you’re still the only person to make me this happy.”

Dele let out a sigh, one that shook a little with the force of the emotion he felt at Eric’s words. “I feel the same way.”

“Tough to top this, I think”, Eric smiled and pressed a kiss to the inside of Dele's palm.

The two looked at each other, strangely at ease at the precipice of something new and exciting, both ready to let go of the loneliness. Eric ran his hand softly across Dele's cheek.

“It wasn’t so difficult to find you, after all.”

 

_\- Fin -_

 


End file.
